The present invention relates in general to telephone systems, and in particular to telephone systems providing music or audio-on-hold or -on-transfer to users of the telephone system.
It is often desirable during the operation of a telephone system for one or more users to be temporarily blocked from communicating with other users of the telephone system. This blocking occurs during a transfer of a user or when a user is put on hold. The blocked user is therefore disconnected from the other users of the telephone system and has nobody to speak or listen to. Many telephone systems provide audio to blocked users in order to entertain those users. For ease in understanding the present invention, blocked users will be considered to be xe2x80x9con holdxe2x80x9d regardless of the specific reason they are blocked. Likewise audio on hold or music on hold is audio supplied to any blocked users regardless of why the user is blocked.
This audio-on-hold feature has become very popular and desirable. Many organizations use this opportunity to inform users on hold about the services and products provided by the organization. Other organizations provide audio from a local radio station or prerecorded music.
The audio-on-hold feature has become so popular, that practically all private telephone systems or Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) provide an audio or music on hold option. The audio-on-hold feature has become so popular, that when telephone users are connected to a PBX, the users put on hold expect to be entertained with audio when they are put on hold. This is especially true when a user has experienced audio-on-hold during a previous call to a particular PBX.
A disadvantage arises when audio is not provided. When a telephone user does not hear audio-on-hold, the telephone user is uncertain as to whether he or she has been placed on hold, or has been disconnected. Being placed on hold without any additional audio, and being disconnected, sound substantially similar, especially to the general public. A typical person is therefore uncertain as to whether they have been place on hold or have been disconnected.
Audio-on-hold can be discontinued for many different reasons. It could be an equipment failure from the PBX, such as the cable between the audio source and the PBX being disconnected or severed, the local radio station providing the audio having an equipment failure and no longer broadcasting, or the device playing back prerecorded audio could fail. Often the users and operators of the PBX are unaware that the audio-on-hold has failed, especially when the users feel they have been disconnected when they are put on hold. Many businesses use PBX systems to communicate between their employees and their customers. When a lack of audio-on-hold causes the customers to believe they have been disconnected, the company""s reputation is harmed.
It is the primary object of the present invention to avoid a lack of audio-on-hold in a PBX. This object is accomplished by the present invention monitoring a plurality of audio sources to determine if audio is available from any of the sources. Once an audio source with an audio presence has been found, the present invention connects that audio source to the PBX and uses the audio from that source to provide audio-on-hold to the telephone users at that PBX. The audio coming from that audio source is substantially continuously monitored. When it is determined that this particular audio source is no longer providing audio, this particular audio source is disconnected from the PBX network and another audio source having an audio presence, is connected instead.
It is another object of the present invention to prioritize the available audio sources with the more desirable sources having a higher priority. When a PBX is initialized, the audio sources are prioritized. The audio source with the highest priority is then monitored to determine if it has an audio presence or an audio deficiency. If this selected audio source has an audio presence, then this selected audio source is connected to the PBX to provide audio for the audio-on-hold feature. If this selected audio source has an audio deficiency, the audio source with the next highest priority is selected and monitored to determine if it has an audio presence or deficiency. If this selected audio source has an audio presence, it is connected to the PBX. If it has an audio deficiency, the process is continued until an audio source with an audio presence has been determined, or there are no more audio sources available. If no more audio sources are available, all of the audio sources are monitored again from the beginning. In this way, a PBX is less likely to fail to provide audio-on-hold, especially due to a failure of an audio source.
When an audio source is being used which is less than the highest priority audio source, the higher priority audio sources are still substantially continuously monitored to determine if an audio presence has returned to these higher priority audio sources. Once audio has returned to one of these higher priority sources, the highest of these other sources is then connected to the PBX and provides the audio for audio-on-hold. In this way, informational or promotional audio is available whenever possible to users of the PBX. Also, a less expensive audio source can be provided for the lower priority audio sources since they will hopefully not be used often. The prioritizing of the audio sources therefore provides for the less likelihood of audio-on-hold failure, and does not require the expense of a completely redundant audio source.
The audio from the audio sources can either be generated internally in the PBX, or externally and received through a jack in a PBX audio-on-hold module. If the audio is generated internally, the PBX module can incorporate a player for prerecorded programs, or could include circuitry for synthesizing music. The audio provided, especially for lower priority audio sources, could be synthesized music or telephony type tones such as a ring tone, a busy signal or other similar type tones. Another possible source for audio could be Internet radio, since the PBX system of the present invention could be incorporated into a computer network, and connected to the Internet.
An audio presence or audio deficiency could be determined by measuring the audio activity of a source, either through measuring volume or the root mean square (RMS) of the energy provided by the audio source.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and specific objects attained by its uses, reference is made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which preferred embodiments of the invention are illustrated.